17 years ago there was young girl who chose not show up at school society interview for the post of general secretary, simply, because she was too afraid, too shy and dreaded the idea of sitting in a room across seniors (read two people only) She was later heartbroken at her lack of courage and for missing out on the chance to be selected. Turns out, opportunity knocked again. The society needed help and that’s when she decided to QUIETLY step up and started helping the teachers, voluntarily. She did more than her fair share and consistently worked hard and showed up. It paid off! Teachers especially created a new position for her, the post of Vice-Presidency. That day she learned something important- determination and consistency can win you results and earn you titles. She graduated with a picture in the school magazine. Apparently, her dream came true, right? Unfortunately, not quite! She got her picture and she got her title but guess what bothered her? Despite that, nobody knew her! She was nonexistent for most people and that day she learned something else. Consistency and determination are not enough. You need to get noticed too. But how could she get noticed until she didn’t put herself forward and be willing to step up not just quietly but boldly, in front of everyone? She was the shy type who would even struggle to string sentences together. But then it struck her and she finally realized what she needed; an attribute that could possibly help her achieve what she hadn’t so far. And then suddenly, as if by magic there was no looking back… It was this very attribute which, only a year later, helped her in, acing her public speaking class; which made her the founder and President of the first HR society in her college, it helped her in addressing a room filled with hundreds of people with ease and confidence. This one attribute helped her network with senior professionals and get her point across successfully; not only this, the latter helped her in getting her first job at the age of 22 when all other classmates were still studying, that one attribute made her become not only the youngest manager at work but also the youngest trainer at work, training people twice her age and level. This one attribute landed her consecutive promotions and also job offers in every job interview she took. This one attribute helped her establish her own companies. 17 years, 3 companies, and 3 countries ago this girl hadn’t shown up at the History Society interview. And yet today, nothing gives her more of an adrenaline rush than speaking to a room full of people. She has now trained thousands of people belonging to various nationalities and ethnicities in 38 different soft skills and would you believe it, not long ago she even trained a room full of high profiled police officials! Again, all due to that one attribute! So what say, do you finally want to know what that one attribute is which made all the difference in that girl’s life? Well, luckily for you, that young girl, now a wife, mom, entrepreneur, and owner of three different brands is me and today I will share with you, that one attribute that transformed my life considerably and that is….

SELF-BELIEF: If you think ‘YOU CAN’ then ‘YOU WILL’

Just this very attribute changed my life in unimaginable ways. But honestly, self-belief doesn’t come instantly. It requires practice and conviction and a careful re-wiring of your brain. To believe in yourself, you first need to convince your brain that it can and will achieve what you want it to do. You see, the brain will do exactly as it’s told. If you keep telling yourself that you can do something, you will be amazed to see how well your brain cooperates in reaching that goal. And that’s why, repeatedly feeding your brain with positive affirmations is the first step towards success.

In this article, I am going to share the exact techniques that help me and that can also help you in training your brain for success. Here they go:

Express your goals using positive and empowering language

One powerful way to re-wire your brain towards achievement is to use “towards based motivation” State your outcome in terms of positively expressed goals versus away from and/or avoidance goals. Choose the words and then write them down in a positive frame. Language can affect results. Simply start saying what you do want, instead of what you don’t want. Effectively, you edit the word “don’t” out of your vocabulary. Focus on what you do want to happen and not what you want to avoid because ultimately, what you focus on is what you notice and what you get more of.

“If you haven’t got what you want, it’s because you’re not communicating correctly with your mind,” says psychologist, bestselling author, and motivational speaker Marisa Peer. She further adds that that the brain does what it thinks you want so you have to be very careful when telling your brain what you want.”

Marisa also encourages talking yourself out negativity and challenging situations by using empowering language such as ‘I want to do it, I choose to do it. I love doing it’. By replacing disempowering phrases like ‘I have to’ by empowering ones like ‘I choose to’, you are removing yourself from a victim position and putting yourself in control. You will feel fully in charge of your actions and that will eventually impact how you approach challenging situations in future.

Tell the brain exactly what you want by visualizing the outcome using sensory words

Tell your mind what you want by using detailed, precise, descriptive and powerful words.

‘Sensory words are more powerful and memorable than ordinary words because they make your reader see, hear, smell, taste, or feel your words. When reading non-sensory words, your brain processes text. But when you read sensory words different areas of your brain light up. Your brain processes sensory words as if you taste a sweet cake, as if you see a dazzling display of colors as if you feel a rough texture.’

Athletes and personal coaches are big supporters of visualization techniques because they are so effective. Imagining the outcome is their biggest secret to success. Visualization involves using your imagination and thinking what you’d really like to do. Determine it in your mind. Think of the goal as if it were already yours and what you and/or the things around you will look/sound/ feel like when you have achieved the goal. Focus on how good that feels and what the benefit is to you by using as many sensory based words as you can.

Remember, whatever you tell your mind, it will believe so be sure to tell it better things. In a blog in edge NLP the writer when referring to visualization says that ‘I not only saw the outcome, I heard the conversations carrying on around me and really felt the sensations of achievement and success and all that went with it. I even saw the change in my bank balance. Creating this visualization and dropping it into my timeline totally engaged me into the process; I was back in cause, owning my outcome and knowing without a shadow of a doubt that I would achieve it’

Link massive enormous pleasure for achieving a goal and pain for staying the same/ not achieving

Everything we do in our life is driven by the twin forces of pain and pleasure. Commonly referred to as punishment and reward, we either seek to avoid pain or gain pleasure. The key to creating a change is to associate our action/goal with massive pain when we don’t do it and massive pleasure when we do it. By linking pain and pleasure to our goals, we propel ourselves in the direction of our goals. All success is a result of attaching massive pain and a massive pleasure to our goals. The more we link pleasure and pain to our outcomes, the greater is our desire to reach our outcomes. Pleasure and pain are also basic and intrinsic principles of human behavior.

These above three techniques will really help you in bringing you closer to your goals and outcomes and will re-wire your brain for success. Of course, these alone are not enough. You will also be required to put in hard work, determination, and knowledge. As I wrote in my Huffpost article on Limiting Beliefs ‘You need to stop believing in the myth that someone else will come to your rescue’ believe in yourself instead. Ultimately, you own and control the most powerful weapon that can help you to get out of your own way: your brain. Do not underestimate its power – it will play a pivotal role in making any of your efforts successful. After all as Henry Ford, aptly put it; ‘Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t–you’re right’

Hira Ali- is A Leadership Trainer, Motivational Speaker, Writer, and Accredited Professional Coach & Licensed NLP Practitioner, wife and mom. Over the past decade she has had the privilege of training & coaching hundreds of people belonging to various professions, cadres, ethnicities and across a range of wide of industries with a 98% above average rating review.

An accredited member of the International Coach Federation and Association for Neuro Linguistic Programming, her Leadership & Coaching Blogs have been featured and published in The Huffpost, Thrive Global (shared by Arianna Huffington), International Coach Federation & Ellevate Network with over 1000 shares and tweets and millions of reads and likes She has been featured in several interviews and summits for the work she does and has been invited to several guest speaker sessions to talk about Leadership and self-development

Oone of the two podcasts Hira runs-8 Minutes of Learning with Hira Ali has been recently featured in the Huff post amongst the top 100 rising podcasts accepting guests.